OpenAI’s AI spending spree has ballooned to $750 billion

OpenAI announced Wednesday that it will spend $750 billion on infrastructure through 2030, about 25% more than it predicted earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported. I mentioned. The renewed attack comes as the Stargate data center project It seems to have stopped.

The first installment of OpenAI’s spending spree will be a $20 billion data center campus in Georgia known as Project Camellia. The project will span 1,400 acres northwest of Savannah and will draw at least 3.2 gigawatts of power from Georgia Power, the area’s utility. The generating capacity is expected to become available between 2028 and 2032.

The AI ​​company said it “will pay the full cost of infrastructure and electrical utility costs” for the new data center. Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) Base adopted last year to prevent utilities from passing on costs associated with new users who draw more than 100 megawatts.

Georgia Power also said OpenAI will reduce power consumption by up to 1 gigawatt during periods of high grid demand.

OpenAI receives 50% property tax exemption for 15 years from Effingham County, According to To the Effingham Herald.

Neither OpenAI nor Georgia Power have said how the Camellia project will be operated. TechCrunch asked both companies to provide details but did not immediately receive a response.

Regulatory filings may provide some clues. In December, Georgia Power received… consent From PSC to produce an additional 9,885 megawatts. Utility He told PSC It expects to have all the capacity contracted by the end of 2026. The OpenAI deal represents about a third of that amount.

based on Documents Georgia Power has submitted an application to the PSC, and most of the new capacity will come from natural gas. The company said it will build or buy from third parties about 5.8 gigawatts of natural gas generation capacity, about a quarter of which will be from more polluting simple cycle turbines. Overall, new fossil fuel capacity will double Georgia Power’s natural gas fleet. The rest will be provided by grid-scale batteries and solar energy.

While electricity from Georgia Power is expected to start flowing in 2028, OpenAI did not provide a timeline for when the first GPU will be operational. That could happen before 2028 since OpenAI recently hired Brett Mayo to lead the data center buildout. Mayo previously worked at xAI, where he oversaw the Colossus data center in Memphis.

The giant was built in record time, but has allegedly negatively impacted local air quality, according to A lawsuit Provided by the NAACP and Southern Environmental Law Center. The xAI data center is up and running Dozens of unlicensed natural gas turbinesclaiming exemption from federal clean air regulations.